“It is heartbreakingly cruel, but the retired probably need to learn to love cheaper cities. My parents thought it would be cool to live near their grandchildren, but that can’t happen at this point in the cycle. Unfortunately the cycle may easily take us into their teens, so grandparents and grandchildren alike will miss the most magical people through the most magical period in their lives.
Which begs the question of who will look after the kids while we both work at professional jobs to accumulate enough wealth to de-risk potential home ownership (we can still do that, we’re young). Right now the answer is our awesome home daycare. Her revenue doesn’t cover the cost of her basement-and-garden space, but it’s okay because she bought the place a while ago. She can bleed out her RE gains through years of subsidizing me to go to work. If we lose her we might suddenly have to pay market price for the service. Market price is substandard facilities or care, because they can’t actually charge $2500/month: no one would go to work!”
- Zerodown at VREAA 25 Nov 2011 9:34am
Every word wise. – vreaa
Last time I checked it was the parent’s job to take care of the kids. Not Grandma or Grampa’s. For those people who do want grandparents around to provide child care get them to move it.
no kidding – I’m sure your parents thought it would be cool to live near the grandchildren, not actually take care of them in lieu of childcare.
Agreed with both of you, no way in hell my parents are actually looking after kids all day. In a lot of cultures it is typical for grandparents to help out while the middle-aged generation hunts or gathers or collects commissions or whatever- I was using that as a segue between the Garissimo anecdotes. Moreover, part of my point is that it would also be rad if mum or dad had the option of staying home instead of attempting to topline 350k (what was the qualifying income again?)